Bing helped students at Mills Lawn elementary school produce a website on “Colony Collapse Disorder”, a phenomenon when bees disappear either by sickness due to pesticides, or other human and environmental factors, impacting the growth and pollination of trees and plants. This Project-based Learning (PBL) effort was a significant part of their grades for the school year.

This timeline shows the involvement and actions by the kids, volunteers, Mrs. Shelton, and my role (Roger Starnes) as representative from Bing Design…

February 11 – Met “Killer Bees” team Owen, Max, and Hanna and discussed website options and plans to use Wix.com for source for website. Talked to Mrs. Shelton’s class from about my role at Bing Design as a print/web designer and developer and how the things in their PBL would be similar to the kinds of things I do at Bing. We sectioned out the main pages of the site HOME (Hannah), ABOUT (Owen), SPECIES (Max) + ACTION and CONTACT. Then the group discussed ideas for photos, links, and research by other groups.

February 21 – I gave the team more info on using Wix.com and we set up a Google document with login info to the site so they could edit when I was not there. I shared a printout of some of the types of sites that we do at Bing Design, and how the work is similar to what they were doing.

February 25 – The computer network at the school was not cooperating with us this day, so we had to work old-school… on PAPER! We sketched out the content we wanted to use, talked more about the content for each page of the site, and asked the Killer Bees to start getting material from other teams to be shared via Google Docs. After most sessions with the students, I helped write up goals and accomplishments by the team and set goals for next meeting.

March 4 – Started getting content from other groups, including the bee art for the home page of the site! Set timeline for PBL completion. Mrs. Shelton provided a Google Doc for parent and community volunteers to keep tabs on the project. More internet issues to deal with that day.

March 12 – More art and content from other groups. The Killer Bee team were given laptops to work on the site individually! Working with Mr. Zopf (volunteer) and Mr. Hurwitz (librarian) to get content saved for kids. Students had some other things to take part in so our time was cut short, but we did get comics added to the site, charts added, and a map as well as other scanned imagery.

March 18 – CONTENT DAY!! Goal to get BG art done, text and images in site, and all 3 Killer Bees working on loading content. Had a discussion with the ‘robot bee’ group. We had a ‘share session’ by some of the other team members on what they’d come to learn from the project so far: Camryn talked about helpers, Ava talked about revising objectives, Maliah discussed changes to content, Miss Lori noted the problem solvers, C.J. talked about bees in America, Bobby talked about graphs, Max discussed what was involved with the site work. We needed to add video to the Wix.com site, but had to set-up a Vimeo account to share videos, and learned that even Vimeo is seen by school servers as a risky video source…

March 25 – Goal was for all left-over content to be added to the site, and remove all the old content that was part of the copied “Reptiles” Wix.com theme. The Bumble Bees team gave us their video. A new honeycomb background image was drawn by one of the kids and was added to site. Bee photos added to the Home page, with additional content added to About and Bee Species pages. Still lacking some content.

April 4 – Bonus day with the kids to help with adding videos to site, publishing saved content, working on their Contact info, and sharing. Max, Owen, and Hannah all were helping with getting content from other groups (via Google docs) copied over to the site!

April 23 – Hannah was very productive and was selected by Mrs. Shelton and I to complete the project. We added the remainder of the files and images in her Google docs files to the site, and positioned it all. Then saved and published the site.

Working with the students of Mills Lawn for the second school year in a row, has been a treat to me. You see the kids’ focus, interests, disinterests, and what makes them more interested in working. In the end, these Project Based Learning assignments can be an education for students, teachers, and volunteers alike. The kids get real, measurable results, and not just grades – but then so do the teachers and volunteers.

Over the past year, we collaborated with several clients to design and develop their brand identities. Each project – unique in itself – needed strategic vision to build a brand, or rebrand existing efforts to strengthen the company’s competitive position while leveraging brand equity.

Within every project, we start with an exercise that dives into the company history, values, beliefs, competitive landscape, goals, etc. Thoughtful design involves more than simply choosing typography/fonts, color palettes, symbols or icons – the comprehensive operating environment must be considered.

To craft a brand identity that effectively communicates the core of your story, it takes an in-depth process of research, exploration, execution, and refinement. Finding common themes and pulling in strong connections to uncover every aspect of a company informs the process of how a logo will capture the essence of the business.

Some designers will create dozens of designs and leave it up to the client to figure out which one they like and why. Without rationale and background, they will not be able to fully appreciate or take pride in their logo. And that is a missed opportunity. The question becomes if someone asked you about the story behind your logo, how would you respond?

Your brand is your story, your identity is your storyteller, and your logo is the image that helps your audience visualize it. When successful, the identity will tell a compelling story of the brand consistently across all marketing efforts. It’s how the customers will remember you, and it’s the way you will stand out in a crowded marketplace.

In my 20+ years of working in the business of marketing, branding, and advertising, the search for a single source for Web, print, mobile, and digital document collateral that is fun to read has gone largely unanswered.

Microsoft attempted to answer this need in their suite of Office applications (Word and PowerPoint), but like all things Office, simplicity is often lacking and the controls for making documents is a challenge for the desktop publisher. Additionally, the pleasure in reading such content can feel dry and bland.

Adobe has been closing-in on helping humanity answer the call of fun and educational, and Bing Design has been taking the tools we have at hand to give our clients more options in this pursuit.

In an ideal world, clients would like to produce a single document that can be exported in a variety of ways to reduce the need for having multiple source files. Why would that be a problem? Well most large businesses have many employees, and each document is typically shared between a brand manager or staff member. If you work at a company that has multiple locations, you may have several offices with a similar file in each location, shared between staff. So when a change is made, not all versions may reflect the edits, often leading to confusion in messaging or branding.

The industry standard page layout program for print with most businesses is AdobeInDesign. With InDesign, we can build layouts with photos, graphics, text, and colors to get attention, hold interest, and share your product or service with the world!

But how do you do that from one file? In the past, that one file was sent to a printer, and thousands, if not tens of thousands of pages were printed out, collated, and bound, then packaged and shipped around the globe. This was expensive, time-consuming, and revisions were very costly.

Today, the digital age has made the production of online collateral a necessity, and the speed of communication is now down to days if not just a few hours.

While the speed of collateral is now available, the pleasure of reading such content has dropped significantly. PDFs and Web pages can be boring and bland to look at. To help with this consumer sentiment, many publishers have been trying to find a way to pique user interest, and one of the more popular ways is to mix content with interactivity, using 3D realism and even sound to make your experience more enjoyable!

InDesign has the ability to produce files that can be printed at high-resolution on a printer’s press either by traditional off-set printing or using newer digital color techniques. The same application allows the user to export a PDF, images, and even Flash or Flash SWF files.

These new tools do a great job making content more fun to read, and more memorable. It also provides the user a way to search, zoom, and link to other content such as videos, additional PDFs for viewing/downloading, and reading more online.

One drawback on the Flash SWF option of such interactive collateral, is that Apple’s iOS does not support viewing Flash content. To get around that, Bing is also using tools that can export both Flash and HTML5 content that is viewable on desktops, tablets, and mobile devices.

As shown below, one of our clients features an eBook that we designed and produced for them initially using the InDesign steps above. The current version uses a new tool we have developed to produce both the interactive Flash page-flip eBook AND an HTML5 mobile-friendly version of the eBook. Below, the eBook link allows users to read, turn pages, search, zoom, and link to websites, videos, PDFs, and infographics all online from a desktop browser (using Flash), or a mobile device (using HTML5).

The user does not have to pick which option to use, as the page will recognize their device and do that for them! So yes, you can have a single document that provides print, PDF, and now eBooks for desktop or mobile devices!